Garth Howell and the Golden Wand
by Littlemann
Summary: Garth Howell and his best friend Robbie Pinkerton have nothing to do over the summer but dick around in the woods. That is, until they find a stick that shoots lightning. Garth says "aliens," but Robbie says "magic." Guess who's right? Will be updated as often as I can manage it since I also have nothing to do this summer.
1. Chapter 1

**Garth:** robbo whatre u up to

 **Robbie:** literally I have not done 1 single fucking thing today wbu

 **Garth:** just woke up actually lol

 **Robbie:** lmao what do u wanna do

 **Garth:** I was just thinking actually do u remember the forets where we used to turn up?

 **Garth:** *forest

 **Robbie:** yeah I do remember the forets y

 **Garth:** obviously im suggesting we hang out there

 **Robbie:** obviously im down to clown w/that see u in 10

 **Garth:** kk

Garth Howell and Robbie Pinkerton met up in the spot by the woods where they'd gone every summer for as long as they'd known each other, which was their entire lives, basically. Their family members corresponded in the same way: their mothers, their fathers, were best friends. Robbie had a little sister and Garth was an only child, however. But she had her own friends.

Since the end of their first year of high school—a year where they'd neither made nor sustained any friends besides each other—the two had suffered from inactivity. With nothing to do, they'd been struggling for something to focus on over the summer. This seemed like a good start.

This particular spot was their favorite because it was equidistant from their houses, and it was a particularly thin stretch of forest, which they liked because it didn't make them too scared. They were in the left leg of a giant wishbone-shaped stretch of trees. To the north, it opened up into a full-fledged, classical American forest, with a river, big rocks, non-trash-eating raccoons, and so forth. And in between both legs was a massive, flat clearing of dry and wild grass, which they avoided.

The two boys stepped through the trees. "God, we haven't been here since…"

"Since last summer, Garth."

"Yeah," Garth agreed. "Yeah, didn't we play Dungeons and Dragons here?"  
"No, but that would've been way cooler."

"Why, what'd we do?"  
"Well, we… _played_ Dungeons and Dragons here. Like how you'd play house."

"Explain."

"I mean that we'd just thrust our palms at each other and yell 'MAGIC MISSILE' and 'FIREBALL!' That kind of thing."

"Eugh, God. I wish I didn't know us."

"Yeah."

"That sounds really fun actually."

"Yeah."

So they did that until it got dark.

"It's pretty dark," said Garth.

"Yeah. We should stop."

"Yeah. That was fun th—Wait…Wait, wait, wait…" Garth started whispering. "Do you hear that?"

"No, not—"

"That's because you're _fucking talking_ ," Garth shout-whispered.

Robbie glared at Garth but put his hand over his mouth anyway. Then he heard it too: a rustling, coming from behind him. He ran over to Garth and looked to the trees, where the sound was coming from. It grew louder and louder, until…

A very large, burgundy warthog with 6 horns ran out of the darkness in front of them. In his mouth was a stick, about 1 foot in total length. The warthog spat it out and then ran away in between them, just barely missing Robbie's right shin, disappearing as suddenly as it'd arrived.

"JESUS CHRIST!" Robbie yelled.

"Ssh!"

"Why? He's gone! I mean, _it's_ gone. Did you see what that thing had in its mouth?"

"Yeah, it was a stick or something."

"Yeah. Maybe it was playing fetch."

"You think it's somebody's pet?!"

"I said 'was,'" said Robbie.

"Hmm."

Then Robbie trudged forward, into the darkness.

"Where are you going?!" Garth shouted nervously.

"To…right here?" Robbie bent down and started digging through the forest floor.

"Are you trying to get the stick?"

"Yeah, you wanna help me?"

"Not really? It was in a pig's mouth, _seconds_ ago?"

"A warthog. And yeah, it was in a fucking warthog's mouth. And then it _gave it to us_."

"I think you're attributing way too much sentience to the war pig, Robbie."

"Just help me look." Garth trudged begrudgingly over, knelt down, and started rummaging through the dirt. "You don't even have to touch it."

"Yeah I do," said Garth. "When I find it."

"Oh, now you think _you're_ gonna find it?"

"Yeah, Robbie. I'm really good at finding shit."

"Fine, okay. Whoever finds it first gets to keep it."

"Oh, God, no thank you."

"Hey, I found it!"

"Congrats." Garth stood up.

"Wait, no. It was just a regular stick."

Garth sighed and knelt back down. "What makes you think the warthog's stick wasn't regular?"

"Because why would a magical warthog have just a regular stick?"

"Magical?!"

"It had 6 horns, Garth."

"So? Is that…not normal?"  
"I don't _think_ so."

"What the fuck do you know? Found it!"

"Really?!"

"I dunno. Is that it?" Garth showed Robbie the stick he found, and Robbie could just barely see it in the moonlight. But still, he could see that it was too wild to have been the warthog's.

"Nah."

"Awesome. You know, maybe it's just an alien."

"An alien?"

"Yeah, an alien warthog."

"Garth, what the fuck do you know about warthogs?"

"Robbie, once I get this stick I'm shoving it up your ass. And I hope the warthog wants it back."

"Me too, I'll ask it all about what it's like to not be an alien as it works its naughty magic."

"Oh God. Hey, is this it?" Garth showed Robbie another stick.

"Yeah! Yeah, that's it!"

"Hooray," Garth said flatly. "Honestly, Robbie, it's just a dirty, damp stick."

"Dude, look at it."

Garth stood up and walked into a patch of moonlight. It wasn't a "stick" at all, not really. Whatever it was, it had been carved, albeit into a very simple shape, and it was almost exactly one foot long. The bottom fourth of it was a handle, darker and slightly thicker wood than the rest, which was rounded at the top.

"Perfect for ass shoving," said Garth.

"That's…really, dude?"

"Sorry."

"Let me see it."

"Nah. You said the first one who finds it gets to keep it, right?"

"You never agreed to that, though."

"Fine. I agree to it."

"You can't—"

"You never rescinded the offer, FUCKER! Magic missile! Magic missile!" Garth was jumping around Robbie, flicking the wand at him.

"Come on, dude." Robbie was just standing there, defeated.

Garth began prancing and waving, chanting "Magic missile, magic missile." It was super annoying. Then he stopped and looked more serious. He drew a deep breath and pointed the stick at the distant trees, further up the wishbone's leg, where the warthog had come from. "I cast magic missile at the darkness!" he shouted. A cold, dry wind started flowing into the forest shadow, carrying sharp leaves with it. Robbie could swear he heard someone nearby…

"Let's, um, stop being here."

"Yeah," Garth said, "I kind of feel like an idiot." He started walking out of the woods, towards home. "That alien warthog was weird th—"

Suddenly, extremely powerful yellow lightning and thunder shot out of the stick as Garth haphazardly dangled it. It instantly seared Garth's leg. "AAAAH!" he screamed, and started waving it around in panic. Robbie had to duck to avoid it.

"AAAAH!" agreed Robbie.

Garth spun around more and more, eventually just aiming at a single tree about five feet away from him.

"HOW DO I STOP IT?!" he screamed over the thunder booming like fireworks from the stick, and over the deep cracking of the particularly large tree.

"I DON'T FUCKING KNOW!" Robbie screamed back.

Eventually it ran its course and stopped, and the world seemed oddly silent. As they stood panting, they could hear the wind, louder and louder, until it was louder—and colder—than it had been before, and still increasing.

"Let's fucking BOOK IT," Garth screamed.

As they ran out of the forest, Robbie heard the same voices, and Garth heard them for the first time. They seemed to have come out of the clearing, and out of the darkness around them. Their number was impossible to tell, as was their location, only that they were everywhere but where Garth and Robbie were running, so they had to keep running. But they seemed to be getting closer and closer and closer. As Garth leapt out of the forest, he could swear he heard, right by his ear, the word "Muggle."

They decided to have a sleepover after that. But they couldn't sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Garth woke up early the next morning. He'd fallen asleep by accident. A few times during the night, he'd peeked his head through the window right above his bed. He couldn't tell what was old starlight and what was new something else.

Robbie woke him up. He muttered a goodbye and scurried away. Garth went back to sleep and woke up at about 11:00, and when he stepped out of bed he felt something in his pocket. He took it out. It was the stick.

He shouted and flung it across the room. He looked out of his window. Nothing. Garth sighed; there was nothing there after all.

The stick, he could hear, was emitting some static. Afraid of another occurrence of lightning, Garth grabbed it and ran outside. His mother was working that day, as she was almost every day. Neither of them knew when she'd be back, as it was every day. She worked two jobs for herself and Garth, who was extremely thankful, but this is why he was so bored all the time.

Garth ran back into the woods where he'd gotten it.

"Okay, Pig Stick…" He tried to think of something clever to say. "I'm going to…throw you away now!" So he did, through the left leg of the wishbone forest, right into the clearing. He sighed in relief. Somehow, he felt more normal all over. It was a refreshing feeling. He wiped his hands and walked away.

Just before he left the woods, he looked back and saw the stick. He still felt drawn to it, somehow. Despite all his better thought, he still remembered what it was like to feel lightning coming from his hands. Then he remembered: he pulled up his right pant leg.

By all stretches of the imagination, it should've been covered in boils and charred black. However, there was just what equaled a very heavy sunburn. Some light peeling. It might scar. He let his pant leg back down and looked at the stick again.

"I should bury it, actually," he said.

He walked over to the stick and picked it up. When he stood upwards, he looked into the clearing by accident. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. It wasn't stars he saw yesterday.

He could see it now, in the clearing: giant, weirdly-shaped buildings made of concrete and glass. A few were rectangular, many were cone-shaped, and some of them just…defied explanation. Cones with rectangles at the tops. Trapezoids. Domes. Orbs. And scattered all about were long, 1-story buildings, one of which was directly in front of Garth. But at the center of all this was one, relatively old-fashioned, traditional rectangular building.

Garth's stick seemed to draw him towards the building closest to him. With morbid curiosity and a fear of sustained boredom, he stepped into the clearing. He passed a few bronze statues depicting men (and noticeably fewer women) in elegant, flowing labcoats. As he neared the building, he could see people, people middle school and high school age and some adults, walking around. The adults were all wearing labcoats, but the kids were wearing normal clothes.

A bell rang, which seemed to come from every direction at once. On a whim, Garth walked into the first classroom on his right.

The teacher walked in, labcoat billowing behind him.

"Hello, everybody." He walked over to the head of the room, where there was a large chalkboard. He cocked his head at it and flipped it over; the other side was a whiteboard. He wrote his name: Rhine Douglas. "My name is Rh—I mean—" He quickly erased his first name. "Mr. Douglas." He chuckled nervously.

He went around the class and had everyone say their name, grade, what their "focus" was, and one interesting fact about themselves. Garth began panicking. Why did he enter this strange, alien building? What the fuck did he think he was doing?

The boy sitting in the very front of the classroom at the far left said confidently, "Tom Wrine. I'm in 11th grade and my focus is biology. Last semester, I dissected a thestral." For some reason, a deathly silence fell over the room. "I mean, I assume," he added. The room burst into laughter, terrifying Garth. _What the fuck is a "thestral?"_ he asked himself. _Is that even a word?_

He thought about that word, what it might mean, for a while, until suddenly the girl next to him said "Penn Belisle." Garth had an incredible talent for losing track of short amounts of time. "Grade 10. Geology. In the fall I'm going to explore ancient dragon caves in Romania and examine crystal formations."

"Ooh, interesting!" said Mr. Douglas. Then he came to the uneasy Garth.

"Um…I'm Garth Howell."

"Howell? Ooh, are you a werewolf?" asked Mr. Douglas. Garth wasn't sure whether or not he was joking, but he thought it best to answer honestly.

"N-No." Thankfully, Mr. Douglas laughed, and Garth continued. "10th grade." Not knowing what a "focus" really was, he just repeated what Penn had said: "Geology. And, um…My favorite color is blue." Thankfully, the teacher nodded and moved on without any further questions or comments. However, Garth noticed some snickering around him. Even though he'd never met any of these people, he felt a little embarrassed.

Eventually, the introductions ended. Garth heard some more ridiculous things. One girl said her focus was "Magical Studies," and another said "New Media." When it was over, Mr. Douglas walked back to the front of the room and flipped the board over once again. There was a large poster of the periodic table. Garth blinked, unable to rationalize this obvious logical impossibility. He decided to just ignore it until it went away.

"Okay, class, pop quiz." Everyone groaned. "No, no, I'm—I'm just kidding," he added hastily. "This should be easy anyway: what do you get when you combine sodium and chlorine?"

Tom Wrine raised his hand, and Mr. Douglas pointed at him.

"Sodium chloride," he said.

"Okay…But what is sodium chloride usually called?"

Penn raised her hand.

"Yes, Penn?"

"Salt."

"Of course. Now what happens when…" He flipped the board over again. Instead of a periodic table, there was now something impossibly hectic, yet somehow clean and organized. It didn't have any squares; it had hexagons, triangles, trapezoids, and even circles, and what appeared to be at least 7 layers stacked on top of each other. He pointed at an amber-colored isosceles triangle with a dark brown border in the 3rd layer. It had the letters "Tps" on it in shiny black lettering, surrounded by six numbers. "… you combine salt with tumblepine sap, mixed with—" he now went to a solid black trapezoid with white lettering that read "Cbc" on the 2nd layer, "—cobra coal? Wait a minute." He tapped his pointing stick on the trapezoid and a small "e" appeared. " _Essence_ of cobra coal."

Someone whose name Garth hadn't remembered raised their hand and said, "Is it a speed potion?"

"No, but you're close, you're very close. What was your name again?"

"Paul," they said.

"Paul, you're very close. Anyone else?" Another hand. "Yes?"

"Draught of the wind?"

Garth began rubbing his fingers through his hair. This was all beginning to be a bit too much for him.

"Yes! Um, don't tell me…Julianne?"

"Just Julie."

For one thing, he wasn't supposed to be in school right now at all. For another, what was a "draught" pronounced as "draft"? Or a "tumblepine," a "thestral", "new media"?

"Alright, 'Just Julie.' Correct! And you know what it does?"

"Yeah. I think so. Is it…Um…Well, I don't really know how to explain it, sorry..."

"That's okay, this isn't an English class." People laughed.

"It's…like, in the video I saw, they sprayed some of it at a brick suspended in midair, and after a few seconds, it flew away?"

 _I've never seen that video_ , Garth said.

"Correct! And which way was it sprayed?"

"The spray bottle was on the right, so it sprayed to the left, I guess."

"You guess correctly. And which way did the brick fly?"

"To the left."

"To the left," he affirmed. "So from this, we can ascertain that the draught of wind causes an object to move, similar to the way an extremely powerful wind would. You said it took a few seconds for the brick to move?" He waited for her to nod, and she did. "That's because the time it takes for the potion to go into effect depends on the density of the object. Now, you said they shot it out of a spray bottle?" Again, he didn't continue until getting confirmation from Just Julie.

Before he did, Garth raised his hand.

"Oh, yes Garth?"

"Can I go to the bathroom?"

At this, everyone began chuckling again. Garth felt his cheeks growing warm.

"Uuuh…" Mr. Douglas said.

"I mean, _may_ I?" This was not a good move. People had their hands over their mouths, shaking, looking at him in disbelief.

"S-Sure," said Mr. Douglas, stunned.

Garth mumbled his thanks and walked out into the empty hallway. Once the door closed behind him he ran out the door into the field. Past the statues and art-deco architecture. Only now did he realize the little strange things about this massive palace of concrete and glass: the labcoats the statues wore had no pockets. The people wore tall hats with moons and stars in them. They wore thick bears and carried little pointed sticks. Garth took his own from his pocket and looked at it. It was much thicker than any of theirs, and it had a handle. In comparison, it looked incredibly crude.

He was shaking so much that he dropped it, and everything disappeared.

He looked around and was in an empty clearing again, and it was at this point that he started hyperventilating. He picked up the wand and ran, and ran straight into a wall. The wand fell out of his hand and he sat up and again saw nothing. He grabbed the wand again and a wall appeared right in front of his shoes. He shuddered as he thought about what would've happened if his shoes had been in the wall when it appeared. He got back up and walked around it, through that building and away, through the trees and into his room.

He got to the window above his bed and clutched the stick. He could see a series of tall buildings, enough to look like a very small city from far away, where there hadn't been any for his entire life.. He dropped the wand on his bed, and before his eyes, that place—a school, it seemed—disappeared. He touched it. It appeared. Let it go. Gone. He threw the stick into his closet and tried to sleep, although it was barely past dinnertime. He was unsuccessful.


End file.
